Most of the press coverage of the Iranian President’s visit to Iraq focused on his statements against President Bush and the United States. But notice this paragraph from The Christian Science Monitor:

“I thank God for blessing us with the good fortune to visit Iraq and to meet our dear brothers in oppressed Iraq,” Ahmadinejad said in a brief statement after meeting with Mr. Talabani. “Visiting Iraq without the dictator is a truly joyous occasion.”

Those who are quick to cast the U.S. in the role of “oppressors” would focus on his reference to “oppressed Iraq,” but his second statement is more telling. “Visiting Iraq without the dictator” — that would be after the U.S.-led coalition toppled the dictator. It’s unlikely the Iranian leader would have visited Baghdad if Saddam Hussein were still in power. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines laid the groundwork for the “truly joyous occasion.”

What a telling quotation: “You love life and we love death.” If so, what recourse do we have except to give them what they love?

That quotation, from “Al-Qaeda’s chief military spokesman in Europe,” was pulled from Blood & Rage: a Cultural History of Terrorism by Michael Burleigh; i.e., specifically from this review of the book: “The theatre of cruelty,” in the London Telegraph on-line.

(Alan Dershowitz, in “Worshippers of Death” in today’s Wall Street Journal, notes a similar statement from Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah: “We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”)

We haven’t read Burleigh’s book yet, but from the review the ideas in it sound familiar. Burleigh examines “the moral squalor, intellectual poverty and psychotic nature of terrorist organisations, from the Fenians of the mid-19th century to today’s jihadists – the latter group, especially, being composed of unstable males of conspicuously limited abilities and imagination.” Burleigh’s terrorist operatives are, in the words of the reviewer, “sour, lazy nobodies, ugly, of febrile imagination and indifferent talent, who can only become somebody by blowing others, inevitably persons more talented and intelligent, up.” Added to which, as Dershowitz notes in his article, radical Muslim women have recently been encouraging their sons to become martyrs — if not becoming martyrs themselves.

the nineteen assassins were young, “full of unrelenting passion,” not suffering from want or deprivation but well-educated and well-financed, and exasperated against us on the basis of their own imaginings. They and their successors differ from the Gauls [the group Polybius wrote about], however, in having an ideology that screams for conflict. Islam does not mean “peace,” but “submission.” If we forget that, we may cry out “peace, peace” when there is no peace.

There is something noble about being willing to sacrifice one’s self for a just cause. Even as we recognize that, however, the question becomes whether we believe their cause — the cause of death — is more just than ours. And the answer must be no. It cannot be.

They love death. So be it — may it come to them sooner than it comes for us.

The fearmongers who believe the worst of the United States might actually be afraid of a similar scenario here. Those who think secret police are waiting to take them to prison for their dissenting opinions might spend sleepless nights afraid that President Bush could eschew all precedent and simply tap someone to succeed him — a neo-conservative ideologue, no doubt. They might be afraid that the party apparatus (run by the cabal that secretly controls both the Democratic and Republican parties) would then eliminate not only all political opposition but even most press coverage and criticism. And if the question should be put to the lemming-like citizens, who are so much less enlightened than those brilliant critics who see through the facade of patriotic public service, of course we would run out and vote overwhelmingly for the heir apparent.

In their fevered nightmare, instead of two parties actually competing, the single party would, like Medvedev’s party, collect 70% of the votes. And their worst fear would be realized when, instead of moving into retirement and other interests, President Bush would, like Putin, plan to take some new “Prime Secretary” position from which he would secretly run the government.

It would almost be worth it to see that scenario play out, just to see how many of the lunatic fringe of the far Left would stroke out. (It has already seemed as if they were campaigning against President Bush himself.)

Thankfully, we live in a country of laws, with a Constitution well worth supporting and defending and political traditions we wouldn’t give up lightly. It’s remarkable that the governmental system our Founding Fathers designed is so robust and so well-balanced.

So we will endure another election cycle, with all its hyperbole and posturing, and we will peacefully accept the results and live the best lives we can under whatever administration we elect.

And, to paraphrase Joseph de Maistre, we will get the government we deserve. Presumably, just like the Russians did.

Some … genuinely like Obama; some dislike Sen. Hillary Clinton so much they’ll vote for another Democrat next Tuesday just to stop her.

It’s unclear if those Republicans would follow-up with votes for Senator Obama in the November general election. We suspect that, even if Senator Obama tracks back toward the political center as the campaign progresses, they may find an imperfect Republican candidate preferable to a Democrat. But if Senator Clinton, who is a much more divisive figure than Senator Obama, would be the easier Democrat to defeat in November, won’t these primary-season “Obamacans” be making it harder for the Republican ticket to prevail?

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — the HPSCI, usually pronounced “HIP-see” — will take a classified briefing today on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). We presume the HPSCI members are well-versed in the FISA law itself, so this briefing will cover the current intelligence-gathering situation after the Protect America Act — which amended the FISA — expired on February 17th. In particular, it may include the matter of telecommunications companies’ immunity from lawsuits that arise from their cooperation with national security investigations.

We may hope that, after this briefing, the HPSCI members rise in support of the bill that recently passed the Senate, and pressure the House leadership to bring the matter to a vote. We remain skeptical, but optimistic. How else are we to live?

We wonder, however, at the subtle irony that on the HPSCI’s web page, http://intelligence.house.gov/, we are treated to the graphic of the Homeland Security Advisory System showing an “Elevated” threat level: “Significant risk of terrorist attacks.” How much different might that level be, were it not for our operatives’ ability to eavesdrop on potential terrorist communications? Should our elected leaders not give those operatives every possible tool to protect us?

At least, that’s how the legend of the “Gray Man,” the ghost of Pawleys Island, SC, has it. Even though we’re not warning about approaching storms — or at least not real, physical storms — this blog marks a new attempt at getting our warnings out to the world.